


Ink-Red Dawn

by evanlinge



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evanlinge/pseuds/evanlinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I watched your gaze flicker, and turn my way, the sun reflected in your burning, glittering, Sharingan. Like lazy windmills in a sea of red.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink-Red Dawn

 

 

 

Uchiha Mikoto’s father never anticipated a daughter, the name having been chosen after the _Shinto_ god, _Susanoo-no-Mikoto_ , in the belief of awaiting a son.

 

“The Uchiha blood runs strong within her,” he'd said at last, holding his newborn daughter as his wife smiled, exhausted but pleased. “She will do her clan proud.”

 

And Mikoto had done her clan proud, graduating from the Academy top-ranked in her class, activating her _Sharingan_ at age ten and reaching the third level eighteen months later.

She made _chuunin_ the day after her thirteenth birthday, bowing her head to her Hokage first and her mother second.

 

“It is a pity her father's not around to see it,” one of her older cousins muttered, assuming she was out of earshot. A pity indeed.

 

* * *

 

 

Mikoto was fourteen years old the day she met Uzumaki Kushina, a former Uzushio-nin, all fiery red hair and distrustful grins.

 

“Be careful, Mikoto,” the smaller kunoichi had cautioned in her lilting tone, eyes dark in a way which belied her age. Mikoto continued arranging her gear, eyes occasionally flickering to catch the smooth movements of Kushina’s wrists and the strange seals forming beneath the sharp-tipped brush.

 

“I will. You needn’t worry Kushina-chan. It's a very routine escort mission,” she'd answered, checking her kunai.

 

“All the same– ” Kushina huffed, smearing blood-ink onto Mikoto’s eyelids.

 

* * *

 

 

They'd encountered an ambush by rogue-nin on the return trip back to Konohagakure. Two of her team-mates were killed during the brief skirmish, but the wind-infused giant shuriken which would have blinded Mikoto inexplicably veered off-course, the deadly breeze caressing her lashes as it spun on.

 

 

“I did tell you to be careful,” the red-head says, not-unkindly as she helps Mikoto re-bandage her forearm. “You’re just like Namikaze.”

 

Privately, Mikoto knows that she's nothing like Kushina’s fair-haired, too-clever friend, who seems to disappear with his eccentric, but revered mentor more often than not.

 

“What’s this about Namikaze?” She prompts instead, enjoying Kushina’s twitch, and ignores the feeling of ink prickling at the back of her eyelids.

 

* * *

 

 

Uchiha Mikoto is twenty-two years old when she gives birth to her first-born son, and though she does not know it at the time, it is the beginning of the end of the great Uchiha Clan.

 

“Uchiha Itachi,” Fugaku says, a smile curving the corners of his lips. “He will do his clan proud.”

 

“That he shall,” Mikoto agrees, catching her son’s dark eyes.

 

* * *

 

“Itachi,” Kushina intones softly, testing the name on her tongue as the baby reaches for her bright hair. She smiles, hands touching his face like he’s made of glass.

 

“He will do his clan proud,” Mikoto says, and cannot fathom the meaning behind the look that Kushina gives her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _It strikes Uchiha Mikoto as strange, as she kneels before her first-born, awaiting death,_ _that_ _she had forgotten the Uzumakis’ uniquely precognitive abilities._

 

 


End file.
